


The Persistence Question

by abaxialCornucopia



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Identity Issues, Timeline Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 15:48:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16768159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abaxialCornucopia/pseuds/abaxialCornucopia
Summary: Or:If a person x exists at one time and a person y exists at another time, under what possible circumstances is it the case that x is y?(Dirk talks to Dirk.)





	The Persistence Question

“Go on and ask anything you want. Ain’t like I got something else to do, stuck in purgatory like this.”

You stare at him, try to see through those inscrutable shades, even though you know it’s pointless. Besides the obvious marks of age—uncontrollable scruff on his chin, frown lines, a widow’s peak you hope you don’t end up with—and a crooked nose you’re fairly sure has been broken a few times, he looks exactly like… you. A caricature of a middle-aged man who still behaves and styles his hair like a teenager.

It’s unsettling, like going into a house of mirrors and being surrounded by fucked up versions of your body. Lankier, thinner, wider, shorter.

“So,” he cocks his head at you, “gonna talk?”

“I—did you ever feel alone?”

You don’t know what you expect him to answer. There is no way he understands the visceral, white-noise loneliness of endless oceans and complete isolation. Then again, you don’t doubt his (your) capacity to ruin everything remotely close to an interpersonal relationship. 

“Not really. I had Cal.”

A bitter weight sets in your stomach. Yeah, he had Cal. The fucked up, cursed version of him. “No actual human friends?”

He laughs. It’s such a bizarre show of emotion, one you’re sure Dave would die on the spot for witnessing. “You know that’s not our forte, dude. No offence.”

“Yeah. I guess,” you pause, still feeling like you’ve got something to prove even though you know better. You straighten up a little. “But I have a boyfriend. That’s going alright for me.”

“Do you,” he murmurs, raises an eyebrow. For a second, you think he’s genuinely surprised, maybe even pleased. Is he even capable of emoting, you wonder.

“Yeah.”

“I see.”

You cross your arms. “This conversation isn’t about me. It’s about you.”

“Is there any difference?”

 _No_ , the voice in the back of your head says. “I don’t know.”

“Won’t do you any good to keep clingin’ to a pyrrhic victory, bro. You and I are cut from the same paradox slime.”

“Whatever,” you say, because you’ve read entire articles on personal identity, the psychological criterion and the physiological criterion and the fissure problem. You can’t convince him he’s wrong. You can’t even convince _yourself_ he’s wrong.

Maybe both of those amount to the same thing.

It doesn’t matter.

You look at the Texas skyline and down at the smaller buildings you’ve only seen in pictures or under turbid water. You look at him, this warped thing that shares a name and a genome and a broken orbitofrontal cortex with you, and despair weighs heavy on your shoulders.

“Wanna strife, kid?”

You hate that you know yourself well enough to know he is, in his own fucked up way, giving you a hand. Offering you the easy way out. Cheap catharsis, the clang of metal on metal over actual talking.

“Sure,” you say, and rap your katana out of your sylladex because that’s all you truly know how to do.


End file.
